I haven’t previously posted on the fortunes of my sports team. My two sports are college football (In which I am a passive participant) and sailing (In which I getting increasingly passive but not by choice). I have been attending USC football games since 1956 when Jess Hill was coach. He had to deal with the sanctions of the old Pacific Coast Conference, which limited the seniors to five games of the ten game season.
Jon Arnett resisted the lure of the pros and played his truncated senior season. I was present at his last college game, which was at Stanford Stadium and did we hate Stanford ! There were irregularities with the football players, probably trivial in this age of steroids, but the conference voted to sanction USC, UCLA, Cal and Washington. In those days, the conference was divided between big and small schools, and the small schools, plus Stanford which voted with them, voted to sanction the big schools. The result was a five game season for the seniors. The UCLA star, Ronnie Knox, had elected to jump to the Canadian Football League rather than play a truncated season so Arnett’s decision was all the more poignant. We were all in tears as Arnett came to the rooting section after the game and apologized to the students because they had been unable to beat Stanford. That was the low point.
Then came the years of John McKay. Don Clark had done his best but it wasn’t enough. John McKay made everybody happy. The 1963 Rose Bowl Game, which capped the 1962 season, was the greatest game I’ve attended. I usually don’t like those close fought contests but that one was worth the suspense.
USC went through the doldrums after McKay left for Tampa Bay in 1976 but the arrival of Pete Carroll brought the alumni back. There is a story today that makes the point about what kind of man Pete Carroll really is.
In 2003, Ken Norton Jr, son of the heavyweight boxing champion and former star UCLA linebacker, asked the UCLA coach for an unpaid job as graduate assistant with the UCLA team. He had been an all-pro player for 13 seasons in the NFL. He wanted to coach and had done some high school level coaching. The UCLA coach, the recently fired Karl Dorrell, told him they had enough coaches at UCLA. He was a UCLA alum and a football star from his days in college and in the NFL but they didn’t want him, even for free!Norton then asked Pete Carroll for the same job. Carroll said welcome aboard. Four years later, Norton is the linebacker coach and may well be in line for a head coaching job one day.
Dorrell is now gone and the new UCLA coach approached Norton for a coaching job. No thanks. Norton knows which is the first class operation and he will stay.
Once a Trojan, always a Trojan.
Even if you weren’t always a Trojan.
By the way, the original LA Times story about Dorrell’s turning Norton down in 2003 is no longer on the Times’ web site.
Tags: Karl Dorrell, Ken Norton, Pete Carroll, trojan football
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That is a very inspiring story about Norton. I’m so glad you posted it!
You mentioned that the article says what kind of “man” Pete Carroll really is. I’m not sure that is entirely correct. The article tells what a great coach he is. Than can not be disputed. But I can not forget that Pete Carroll showed honor and respect to O.J. Simpson, the murderous thug who slit his childrens mother’s throat, along with another innocent man’s throat, by having him come in to the locker room prior to one of the championship games against Florida (or was it Florida St.?) to give those impressionable college football players a pep talk. Unforgivable in my book. He’s not much of a man in my opinion, Pete Carroll that is. O.J., of course, is an animal.
Brett, that’s a fair comment. I don’t know why he did it. I think we all get one mistake.
I remember watching a lot of games with my family when Pete Bethard and Hal Bledsoe? Bedsole? played. They were quite a pair – qback and receiver I think. I thought that was around 1963 but must not have been.
Bedsole was the big star of the 1962 team that went undefeated. He played in that 1963 Rose Bowl with Beathard. In the 1963 season he seemed to be affected by his press notices and his play was not first rate. We saw the same thing with another SC player in recent years although his name escapes me at the moment. Being a big star as a junior can be tough to improve upon as a senior. Thats probably why Carroll was happy to see Mike Williams go to the pros early.
I don\’t normally leave comments! But what you said here makes one think! Would you mind if I placed a link back from my blog?
I sometimes have trouble telling these comment spam posts from honest posts by people with poor language skills. No offense. Why anyone, for example, would want to translate a post about USC football into German is a mystery.